Friday, September 13, 2013

Interview: Kain by Brie McGill

Ever since I was a little kid, I'd lay awake at night
and make up stories in my head.

Fortunately, writing is a socially acceptable
outlet; with the advent of self-publishing, it can now be an extremely
fulfilling hobby.

Do you have a specific writing style?

All of my subject matter is inherently visceral. I
like to get to the heart--or to the guts--of a matter.

Do you write in different genres?

My titles are all genre mashups. I can't get away
from science fiction and speculating about the future--but none of that is much
fun without a heavy dose of steamy romance. I also like to experiment with new
ideas and explore new themes; Kain had strong dystopian elements. My next
title, Six Below, has a strong gothic flavor.

How did you come up with the title for your latest
book?

Without spoiling anything, Kain was chosen for its
Biblical significance.

Do you title the book first or wait until after it’s
complete?

Writing the story is the easy part. I bite my nails
and hope the title will find me by the time I'm finished writing the story. So
far, I've been lucky.

Is there a message in your novel that you want
readers to grasp?

The human spirit is indestructible.

What is your current “work in progress” or upcoming projects?

I'm putting the finishing touches on Six Below, a
biopunk/paranormal romance set in the same world as Kain, scheduled for release
on October 23rd. A Jambutian senator's daughter is kidnapped, and falls
hopelessly in love with her kidnapper, who is a man with telepathic powers and
a serious grudge against a biotech company notorious for its human
experimentation...

Is there anything you find particularly challenging
in your writing?

When I wrote Kain, it was my first attempt at
writing steamy romance. It was awkward at first, finding words and a style I
felt comfortable using... but then it was a lot of fun!

For my next title, Six Below, I ended up having to
detail some gory subject matter, like murder, experimental creatures trapped in
jars of yellow jelly, and a human/alien barbecue pit. I didn't intend a heavy
gothic horror element, but the story made me write it.

Do you have to travel much to do research for your
books?

Fortunately, the internet makes research simple. While
writing Kain, I watched hours of martial arts documentaries. I had to re-read
the Tibetan Book of the Dead, study photographs from urban spelunkers, and
research what the inside of an air duct is actually like (which is not how
Hollywood portrays them at all).

Do you have a song or playlist (book soundtrack) that
you think represents this book?

Kain was written heavily under the influence of Nine
Inch Nails. The ambient sounds in Ghosts I-IV mesh nicely with the urban
exploration and infiltration scenes; the intense, explosive tracks were an
inspiring match for writing the face-breaking fight scenes. I can't imagine
science fiction without an industrial soundscape.

Counting days is irrelevant in the life of a well-to-do man, unless he counts the days passed in total service to the Empire. Salute. Submit. Shut up and scan the wrist. Therapists armed with batons and brass knuckles guide the derelict along a well-beaten path to Glory.

When human experiment Lukian Valentin escapes the Empire to save his crumbling sanity--through a grimescape of fissured highways, collapsing factories, putrescent sewers--he realizes the fight isn’t only for his life, it’s for his mind. Torturous flashbacks from a murky past spur him on a quest for freedom, while the Empire’s elite retrievers remain at his heels, determined to bring him home for repair.

Lukian needs one doctor to remove the implanted chips from his body, and another to serve him a tall glass of answers. Lukian attempts a psychedelic salvage of his partitioned mind, gleaning fragments of the painful truth about his identity.

A scorching, clothes-ripping rendezvous with a mysterious woman offers Lukian a glimpse of his humanity, and respite from his nightmarish past. It also provides the Empire the perfect weakness to exploit for his recapture.

To rise to the challenge of protecting his new life, his freedom of thought, and his one shot at love, Lukian must reach deep into his mind to find his true identity. To defeat the Empire, he requires the deadly power of his former self--a power that threatens to consume him.

About the Author:

Doctors suspect Brie developed an overactive imagination during childhood to cope with the expansive corn maze known as rural Pennsylvania. Unable to afford an operation to have the stories surgically removed from her brain, she opted instead to write them down.

Brie lives in British Columbia with her boyfriend and naughty black cat, somewhere not too far from the sea. She enjoys trips to the local farm, chatting with her long-distance friends on a rotary phone, and roflstomping video games from the nineties.